Howay

Nicest kit for a while since the sponsor fits with it for a change

Agreed, we do seem to have this exact same discussion about budget every window before splashing north of 150m mind . Additionally the Hope story states we have a 75m budget then proceeds to list a bunch of midfielders that would cost 75% of that or more As Alex mentioned the club would never put out a figure. That’s why I agree with your point that it’s likely smoke and mirrors. There’s a lot of gaming you can do with FFP, if we’re so restricted by it that we can only sign the likes of Tyler adams and Kyle Walker peters we can forget competing tbh . We’re also about to drop £7m on a youth prospect, so already down to the mid£60m range . Makes you wonder how we were okay in the prior 3 year period if we are so strapped for this one despite the massive increases in TV and sponsor money

Aye that’s along the lines of where I could see it being a possibility, but it’s not what these reports imply - a £70m budget would mean Walker peters would be our starter I don’t buy it for a second tbh. As for Caulkin he’s a decent journalist but I wouldn’t say he’s more accurate than others? He’s more an opinion piece type than being right about breaking news.

Aye this is what I’m meaning, it’s clearly what the club want everyone to think rather than being truthful. We’ve got far higher revenue coming this season, including a huge increase in sponsors, even an increased wage bill wouldn’t explain a budget half what we had when we were battling relegation. It’s the same as when Edwards was being told £50m was all we had.

That floppy cunt Rory is still going? He’s the cunt that said Haaland would be a huge flop, as clueless/click-baity as they come that bloke. He should stick to watching cricket and polo tbh, leave football to people that know about it.

Personally I’m not paying much attention to what the press are saying, I think we’ve constantly played down how much we can spend each window. People are saying Szoboszlai is out our price range but we bought Isak for similar after narrowly avoiding relegation and having dog shit sponsors, and still brought in a number of others (Botman, Gordon, Targett, and Pope). If the discussion is £50m for Maddison and £60m for Szoboszlai that’s a fairly negligible price difference for FFP over a 5-6 year contract. We will be smart as we always are but these articles about us shopping the scrap heap of relegated sides is disrespectful iyam, Maddison I can accept but links to players like Tyler Adams, Kyle Walker-Peters etc are a joke. We’ve signed Botman, Trippier, Bruno, Isak, etc during relegation fight/near miss seasons I really don’t think we’re going to be heavily investing in the pool of relegated players tbh, our focus will be on quality players.

Having Botman and this bloke with Burn and Schar as our CB group would be class.

They also both played in League One at a similar age (Longstaff was 19 iirc), Longaz managed 12 goals & assists (8 goals) to Neil’s 10 (3 goals). He’d also managed about 32 PL appearances by Neil’s age. It’s of course possible Neil is actually a talent, I’ve never seen him play, but the fact mackems tend to compare every single one of their players favorably to ours makes me think he’s not actually better. As you say though it’s just fucking mental how they act like the PL and league one is in any way comparable, despite having visible evidence this season when their Barcelona style side had to play counter attacking defensive football to a fairly bog standard, newly promoted side.

He outscored ASM this season, the stats show an accurate shooter of the ball and he’s just turned 23. It’s not just a few tackles, it’s showing how good he could be in our pressing system - the amount of times he challenges/tackles in the final third. If you want to write the bloke off it’s weird but up to you really. Eddie Howe and Dan Ashworth seem to rate him, enough to spend whatever we could under FFP to get him, that’s enough for me at the moment despite him not starring so far at the club - he admitted he needed to get up to speed with the squad and has stated he’s working through the summer.

Aye it’s the glaring weakness in his game the amount of good chances he squanders. If he can become more clinical he will become a massive threat, I get very frustrated with that aspect of his game but the way he pressures out of possession and his powerful runs with the ball are huge to our game. Longstaff suffers from a similar lack of composure in his shooting, but the positions they both get themselves into have been really impressive this season.

Aye, if it’s true it’s a good deal. I have a hard time believing much when that club are involved mind, they’re the one club that seems to pay significantly lower than any discussed release clauses/demands in the media after the signing. It always seems a bit like publicity and playing into this perception that Klopp is doing more with less than anyone else in a time where most transfers are officially undisclosed.

Aye, he also played for the worst attacking side in the league for half the season which heavily impacts his statistics, as seen by his shooting ones which show his accuracy despite getting the opportunity to shoot as much when compared to his peers, as well as his defensive stats. Compared to the same stats for ASM: We can play around with stats all day to shape narrative how we want tbh, the thing that’s clear is ASM doesn’t mesh with Howe’s style of play - he suits a style where he gets all the ball and can do his mazy runs to the corner flag to his hearts content. Gordon is a youth prospect tbh.

Almiron follows Al-Ittihad on Instagram apparently

Maybe Al Ittihad will buy him

Completely spot on. They’re fucking unreal, every top player in football grew up a massive Liverpool fan who is absolutely desperate to play for them according to that lot. Bellingham, a lad that was clearly Birmingham City through and through, was obsessed with Liverpool that lot reckoned and that worked out well . It’s complete delusion, a Liverpool glory hunter I know does it all the time - every top player anyone else signs was a target for them, or wanted to play for them etc.

It’s really nice to see a focus on improving the level of our academy sides. We’ve recruited heavily in this department already with a lot of highly rated British and Irish players, hopefully we see some of them make their way into the first team.

I agree he has shown some adaptation to his game this season, the issue is I just think his natural game is basically the opposite of what Howe wants so it’s always going to be an uphill battle. Those instincts are hard to overcome, I think it was one of the last games this season where twice he received the ball over the top and should have been gone with an easy one on one but instead he slowed and tried to check his man and beat him rather than just sprinting with the ball while he was already clear. His shooting is also pretty poor, so it’s a lot of things to improve when we could just sell him and buy better. I get why people are so attached to him and want him to work (although not to the extent some do - not including you in that btw Gloom), but it’s a good time to move on for both him and the club.

A lot of stats like that are really helped by being subbed on in games we are comfortable in, and Howe finally trusts he can come on and not harm us. The reality is he’s a player who turns the ball over in horrendous positions, leaves his left back exposed, and doesn’t massively help our aggressive press when the ball is turned over (something which has been a huge factor for us). He’s a player people always seem to search for every positive stat or involvement to support him being some brilliant player, the reality is he’s not which will be underlined when we see who bids for him.

Aye, Luke has absolutely had his life. Also after his whiney little post about Newcastle fans not getting their club back the dope has the below as his Twitter background

These types of posts by journalists that sniff their own farts is beyond tedious at this point. We all know the points, but doing things like calling a club people have a connection to a pawn will always create a hostile/defensive response - then they have a whinge about the abuse they received before trying to make it seem like they were actually trying to make some noble, important point before having another snidey little dig. Inevitably ones like Holt, and Delaney join in before they play a big game of “haven’t we been hard done by” soggy biscuit the crumpet munching pricks. Gan kick rocks Storey you nerdy cunt.

Aye, he won’t have any insight into Howe’s thoughts tbh as Ashworth and Howe have both agreed to keep everything within the club. I think a lot of these are roll over rumours from earlier windows too, it’s also quite a noticeable trend that when a player is linked and then the link gathers steam people like Romano start posting about it then most the time it goes nowhere - I tend not to pay him much notice tbh especially after the Joao Pedro mess.

Spot on, they’ve been wanking themselves silly over Real Madrid winning CL after CL with their fucking super team, the wages of Bale, Benzema, and Ronaldo alone would have been eye watering let alone the rest of their team. We’ve had years of Italian sides dominating Europe, years of Spanish sides, what’s the difference if it’s a few years of Premier League dominance? This constant outrage that football was this totally equal game and has now been ruined is laughable, just like the whinging about Man City winning a few titles in a row conveniently ignores the fucking dominance of Manchester United and how they drained the best talents from all other PL sides for yonks. For a long time Barca and Real Madrid enjoyed massive financial advantage over the PL sides since they hoovered up the lions share of TV rights while the PL sides had more of an even split - again something conveniently ignored now the PL sides are getting similar TV revenue despite the more even split across the league.

so not happening